198 DOMICIL

the law varies with the provinces. In such cases, the countries
that adopt the principle of nationality for matters of personal
status recognize that, after nationality has fulfilled its primary
function of connecting the propositus with a particular political
unit, a further auxiliary test is required to connect him with
a definite system of internal law. Thus every Czechoslovakian
national, even though born and resident abroad, is attached by
registration to some district in Czechoslovakia, and, so far as
concerns his personal rights, it is the municipal law prevailing
in this district that represents his national law. In Poland the
governing law depends upon the place of domicil in Poland,
and, failing this, upon the domicil of origin,
what is But the practical question for an English lawyer is:

al kw of When the court is directed by English private international law to

Vitfec'k Decide a question concerning a British subject according to the law

of his domicil, and it finds that this law refers the matter to the law of

nationality, which of the many legal systems covered by the British flag

is to be taken as representing the national law ?

There is, in the first place, no presumption that it is the law
of England rather than that of any other part of the British
Commonwealth.1 If the frofositus is domiciled at the relevant
time in a British country, the practice is to regard the lex
domicilii as his national law. If he is domiciled in a non-British
country, his domicil of origin represents his national law.2 It is
in a case of this nature that the principle of nationality may lead
to such an eccentric decision as was given in In re O'Keefe*
Conclusion/ Perhaps a fair conclusion, speaking very generally, is to say

that, as determinants of the personal law, nationality yields^at .
predictable but frequently an inappropriate law^ domicil yie!4s j
arTappropnate but frequently an unpredictable law.
Need for This division of the world into those countries that adopt
Sh t^le Pr*nciple of nationality and those that prefer the test of
law domicil is unfortunate, since it obstructs the movement for
the unification of rules of private international law. No effort
should be spared to reconcile the opposing views. Perhaps an
essential preliminary is that the English legislature should
remove some of the archaic doctrines that seem incongruous in
their modern environment and should frame a new definition

1 In re Askew, [1930] 2 Ch. 2 59, note by Pollock at p. 269.

2 i2-#,rj?./.Z. 176, commenting upon J#r*&7.fj-, [1930] i 01.377, and-for*
W) supra.

tI94°] * Ch. 124, discussed supra, p. 71; at In re Johnson, [1903] i Ch. 826.